Jacob Rees Mogg makes a bid to improve Boris Johnson’s communications

According to those who should know, Boris Johnson’s newspaper columns tend to be written up in a rush by the man himself.

“Planning more than five minutes ahead is not how Johnson rolls,” according to Iain Martin, one of the Tory MP’s old comment editors at the Telegraph.

"Many was the Sunday evening when the poor sap on duty would have to wait until the final moment, with the presses ready to run, for the delivery of Johnson’s column. What arrived was usually what one fellow former member of the guild describes as a highly entertaining shaggy dog story built around a germ of a political idea, with jokes attached. Great fun, and a bit flea-bitten, but hardly the work of Machiavelli.”

But if Johnson does want to change his modus operandi and get a bit of help, then it looks like a fellow Brexiteer is on hand.

Appearing on the Jeremy Vine on 5 show, Jacob Rees Mogg explained why he was supporting Johnson for Tory leader and why he would not be judging his colleague over his private life.

He also explained how Johnson could have improved his recent controversial column in the Mail on Sunday, which argued that that the prime minister’s Brexit plan had left the country “wrapped in a suicide vest”.

“I was slightly surprised, the classical scholar that he is, he didn’t say that it was like Socrates drinking Hemlock, which may have been a more genteel comparison.”

Rees Mogg also hit back at the suggestion that Johnson would be too chaotic to be prime minister by comparing the former London mayor to a former U.S president.

“When he was mayor of London... he had the good sense to appoint people around him to run things. Like Ronald Reagan, he saw that if you set out the big picture you can appoint good people to the detailed work.”

Later in the show, Rees Mogg got taken to task by the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire and he proudly revealed that he had no idea who Harry Styles and that he was also hazy about Kim Kardashian.